One factor of the current poll is “Gardening and landscaping”, which is defined as maintenance of public green areas. It also means creating and building new public green areas and there is an interesting project to find in New York City: A defunct stretch of railroad on the Far West Side of Manhattan is destined to become a park in the sky.

The High Line is an abandoned 2.33 km (1.45 mile) section of the former elevated freight railroad of the West Side Line, along the lower west side of New York City borough of Manhattan between located in the West Village. The High Line was built in the early 1930s by the New York Central and has been unused by freight service since 1980. It is in a state of disrepair, although the elevated structure is basically sound. Wild grass and plants grow along most of the route.

The community-based group Friends of the High Line was established by neighborhood residents Robert Hammond and Joshua David, leading to plans to turn the High Line into an elevated park or greenway, similar to the Promenade Plantée in Paris. In 2004, the New York City government committed $50 million to establish the proposed park.

After having received a certificate of interim trail use issued by U.S. Federal Surface Transportation Board in 2005, the city is allowed to remove most of the line from the national railway system. In 2006 Mayor Michael Bloomberg presided over a groundbreaking ceremony, marking the beginning of construction on the High Line project, turning it into an elevated park.

The project is being undertaken by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, an interdisciplinary firm straddling architecture, urban design, visual arts and the performing arts. According to the architects, the master plan for The High Line is inspired by the melancholic, unruly beauty of the ruin today where nature has reclaimed a once vital piece of urban infrastructure. By changing the rules of engagement between plant life and pedestrians, the strategy of agri-tecture combines organic and building materials into a blend of changing proportions that accommodate the wild, the cultivated, the intimate, and the hyper-social. The park is marked by slowness, distraction and an other-worldliness that preserves the character of The High Line.

The park is expected to be completed at the end of2008/ beginning of 2009.  We are looking forward to the opening.

What do you think about such reconstruction or transformation? Do you think this is a solution for the city of the future?

See more renderings of this project here.

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